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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Ecc_11:1 to Ecc_12:7
1. Of Benevolence and Fidelity to Calling
(Ecc_11:1-6)
(Ecc_11:7-10)
(Ecc_12:1-7)
[Ch. 11 Ecc_11:3.— éְäåּà . If it is allowable at all to vary from the text that has come down to us, this may be regarded as equivalent to ùָí äåּà (comp. Ecc_1:5) “there is he,” there it is. It might easily arise in writing from the ear, the shewa sound being hardly perceptible. If we regard it as the future of the substantive verb äéä , or äåä , with à for ä , it is not a Syriasm, since the future of the Syriac verb would be éäֶåֱà or rather ðֶäְåֶà .—T. L.]
[Ecc_11:5.— ëַּòְַöָéí ) with ellipsis of ãֶּøֶêְ , equivalent to ëøøï òöîéí .—T. L.]
[Ecc_12:3.— éָæֻòåּ . This is called Aramaic, but it is as much Hebrew as it is Aramaic or Arabic. The intensive form, åòåò , occurs Hab_2:7. It is one of those rarer forms that are to be expected only in impassioned writing, like this of Solomon, or in any vivid description. Its frequency or rarity would be like that of the word quake, in English, as compared with tremble. The rarer word [as is the case in our language] may be the older one, only becoming more frequent in later dialects according as it becomes common by losing its rarer or more impassioned significance.—T. L.]
[on the difference between éַìְøåּú and áְּçåּøåֹú Ecc_11:9 the words ùַׁäְַøåּú Ecc_11:10, áָּèְìåּ Ecc_12:3, éָðֵàõ Ecc_12:5, éֵøָçֵ÷ Ecc_12:6, and úָּøֶּõ and ðָøåֹõ Ecc_12:5, see the exegetical and marginal notes.—T. L.]
2. First Strophe, first half. Ecc_11:1-3. An admonition to benevolence, with reference to its influence on the happiness of him who practices it. Hitzig, instead of finding here an admonition to beneficence, sees a warning against it, an intimation that we hope too much for the good, and arm ourselves too little against future evil; but every thing is opposed to this, especially the words and sense of Ecc_11:3, which see.—Cast thy bread upon the waters.—That is, not absolutely cast it away (Hitzig), nor send it away in ships (as merchandise) over the water (Hengstenberg), but “give it away in uncertainty, without hope of profit or immediate return.” The admonition is in the same spirit as that in Luk_16:9; Pro_11:24 f. The Greek aphoristic poets have the expression “to sow on the water;” as Theog., Sent. 105. Phocyllides 142 c.
The entire sentence (most probably as derived from this source) is found in Ben Sira (Buxtorf, Florileg. Heb., page 171), and among the Arabians as a proverb: Benefac, projice panem tuum in aquam; aliquando tibi retribuetur (Diez, Souvenirs of Asia, II., 106).—For thou shalt find it after many days.— úִּîְöָàֶðּåּ is here clearly used in the sense of finding again.— áְּøֹá äַéָּîִéí literally, “in the fullness of days, within many days.” Comp. Psa_5:6; Psa_72:7, etc. The sense is without doubt this: Among the many days of thy life there will certainly come a time when the seeds of thy good deeds scattered broadcast will ripen into a blessed harvest. Comp. Gal_6:9; 2Co_9:6-9; 1Ti_6:18-19; also Pro_19:17 : “He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord.”
Ecc_11:2. Give a portion to seven and also to eight.—That is, divide thy bread with many; for “seven and eight” are often used in this sense of undetermined plurality, as in Mic_5:4; comp. also “three and four,” Pro_30:15 ff.; Amo_1:3; Amo_2:1 ff.—Hitzig runs entirely counter to the text, and does violence to the usual signification of çֵìֶ÷ saying: “make seven pieces of one piece, divide it so that seven or eight pieces may spring from it,” which admonition would simply be a rule of prudence (like the maxim followed by Jacob, Gen_32:8) not to load all his treasures on one ship, that he might not be robbed of every thing at one blow. This thought comports neither with the context nor with Ecc_11:6, where the sense is entirely different.—For thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.—That is, what periods of misfortune may occur when thou wilt pressingly need strength by community with others; comp. Luk_16:9.
Ecc_11:3. If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth.—Not that evil or misfortune “occurs from stern necessity, or in immutable course” [Hitzig, and also Hengstenberg, who here sees announced the near and irrevocable doom of the Persian monarchy], but exactly the reverse: let the good that thou doest proceed from the strongest impulse of sympathy, so that it occurs, as from a natural necessity, that rich streams of blessings flow forth from thee; comp. Joh_7:38; also Pro_25:14; Sirach 35:24; also the Arabian proverbs in the grammar of Erpenius, ed. Schultens, p. 424. Pluvia nubis co-operiens, dum dona funderet, etc.—And if the tree fall toward the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth there it shall be.—This is apparently a parallel in sense to the second clause of Ecc_11:2, and therefore refers to the irrevocable character of the doom, or the Divine decree that overtakes man [Hitzig, Hengstenberg, etc.; also Hahn, who, however, translates the last clause thus: “One may be at the place where the tree falls,” and consequently be killed by it]. But it seems more in accordance with the text, and with the introduction [not with ëִּé but with the simple copula åְ ] to find the same sense expressed in this second clause as in the first, and consequently thus: “the utility of the tree remains the same, whether it falls on the ground of a possessor bordering it to the north or the south; if it does not profit the one, it does the other. And it is just so with the gifts of love; their fruit is not lost, although they do not always come to light in the manner intended” (Elster; comp, also Vaihinger and Wohlfarth, etc.). Geier and Rosenmueller are quite peculiar in the thought that the falling tree is the rich man, who is here warned of his death, after which he can do no more good deeds (similar to this are the views of Seb. Schmidt, Starke, Michaelis, etc.). éְäåּà a secondary Aramaic form of éִçְéֶä and therefore literally equivalent to: “it will be, it will lie there;” for which consult Ewald, § 192 c, as well as Hitzig on this passage. There is no grammatical foundation for the assertion that it is a substantive to be derived from an obsolete verb éäà and explained by the word “break” [ ùָׁí éְäåּà “there occurs the break or fracture of the tree,” as says Starke].
3. First strophe, second half. Ecc_11:4-6. An admonition to zealous, careful, and untiring performance in one’s calling [ ìὴ ἐêêáêåῖí , “not to faint,” as before he was warned ðïåῖí ôὸ êáëὸí , to be earnest in well doing, Gal_6:9]. He that observeth the wind shall not sow.—A warning against timid hesitancy and its laming influence on effective and fruitful exertion. He whom the weather does not suit, and who is ever waiting for a more favorable season, misses finally the proper period for action. The second clause expresses the same admonitory thought regarding excessive considerateness.
Ecc_11:5. As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her who is with child.—[Zöckler renders “way of the wind.” See the excursus appended, p. 150.—T. L.]—That is, as thou canst not comprehend nor see through the mysteries of nature. That the origin and pathway of the winds is in this regard proverbial, is shown by Joh_3:8 [comp. above, Ecc_1:6]. For the formation of the bones in the womb of the mother as a process peculiarly mysterious and unexplainable, comp. Psa_139:13-18.—Even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.—The “works” or action of God are, of course, His future dealing, which is a mystery absolutely unknown and unfathomable by men; wherefore all success of human effort can neither be known nor calculated in advance. “Who maketh all;” for this comp. Amo_3:6; Mat_10:28-29, Eph_3:20, etc.
[The Unknown Way of the Spirit and of Life.—Ecc_11:5.—“As thou knowest not the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow,” etc. The words ãֶּøֶêְ äָøåּçַ are rendered here by Zöckler, Stuart, and Hitzig, “the way of the wind.” There would be good reason for this from the verse preceding; but what follows points to the sense of spirit, although the word was undoubtedly suggested by what was said in Ecc_11:4 of the wind. The best way, however, is to regard the double idea of wind and spirit as being intended here, as in our Saviour’s language, Joh_3:8. About the words following there can be no mistake. The process described is set forth as the peculiar work of God, a Divine secret which human knowledge is challenged ever to discover. “Thou knowest not the way of the spirit” [ øåּçִé Gen_6:3, “my spirit,” that I have given to man], “nor how the bones do grow,” that is, how that spirit, or life, reorganizes itself each time, clothes itself anew in the human system, making the bones to grow according to their law, and building up for itself a new earthly house in every generic transmission. This is the grand secret, the knowledge and process of which God challenges to Himself. Science can do much, but it can never discover this. We may say it boldly, even as Koheleth makes his affirmation, science never will discover this; for it lies above the plane of the natural; and in every case, though connected with nature, demands a plus power, or some intervention, however regulated by its own laws, of the supernatural. The Bible thus presents it as God’s challenged work [comp. Gen_2:7; Gen_6:3; Job_33:14; Psa_139:13; Jer_1:5], the same now as in the beginning when the Word of life first went forth, and nature received a new life power, or, rather, a rising in the old. The passage of life from an old organism to a new is as much a mystery as ever. We mean the transition from the last enclosing matter of the former, through the moment of disembodiment, or material unclothing (see note, Gen., p. 170), when it takes that last matter of the previous organization, or of the seed vessel, or seed fluid, and immediately makes it the commencing food, the first material it uses in building up the new house in which it is to dwell. In respect, too, to the mystery of supernatural origin, it is as much a new creation as though that unclothed and immaterial power of life [whether in the vegetable or in the animal sphere] had for the first time begun its manifestation in the universe. It is the same Word, sounding on in nature, or, as the Psalmist says, “running very swiftly,”— ðíåῦìá íïåñὸí , ἐõêßíçôïí , ἐõåñãåôéêὸí , ðáíôïäýíáìïí , ðÜóçò êéíÞóåùò êéíçôéêþôåñïí , êáὶ äéὰ ðÜíôùí äéÞêïí , äéὰ ôὴí êáèáñüôçôá ; Wis_7:23-24. It is the transmission, not merely of an immaterial power (though even as a power science can only talk about it or find names for its phenomena), but also of a law and an idea ( íïåñὸí as well as ἐíåñãåôéêὸí , an intelligent working we may say) representing, in this dimensionless monad force the new life exactly as it represented the old in all its variety, whether of form or of dynamical existence,—in other words, transmitting the species, or the specific life, as that which lives on, and lives through, and lives beyond, all the material changes that chemistry has discovered or can ever hope to discover. Science may show how this life is affected in its manifestations by the outward influences with which it comes in contact, the changes that may seem to enter even the generic sphere, and it may thus rightly require us to modify our outward views in respect to the number and variety of strictly fundamental forms; but the transmission itself of the species (however it may have arisen or been modified) into the same form again of specific life, or the carrying a power, a law, and an idea, in a way that neither chemical nor mechanical science can ever trace,—this is the Divine secret towards which the Darwinian philosophy has not made even an approach. Its advocates know no more about it, than did the old philosophers who held a theory precisely the same in substance, though different in its technology. They talked of atoms as men now talk of fluids, forces, and nebular matter; but give them time enough, or rather give them the three infinities of time, space, and numerical quantity of conceivable forms, and they would show us how from infinite incongruities falling at last into congruity and seeming order, worlds and systems would arise, though their form, their order, and the seeming permanence arising from such seeming order, would be only names of the states that were; any other states that might have arisen being, in such case, equally entitled to the same appellations. Like the modern systems, it was all idealess, without any intervention of intelligence either in the beginning or at any stages in the process. It is astonishing how much, in the talk about the Darwinian hypothesis, these two things have been confounded,—the possible outward changes in generic forms, and the inscrutable transmission of the generic life in the present species, or in the present individual. The theory referred to is adapted only to an infinity of individual things, ever changing outwardly, and which, at last, fall into variety of species through an infinite number of trials and selections, or of fortunate hits after infinite failures. It makes no provision, however, for one single case of the transmission of the same specific life, either in the vegetable or the animal world. There it has to confess its ignorance, though it treats it sometimes as a very slight ignorance, soon to be removed. How pigeons, taken as an immense number of individual things, undergo an eternal series of outward changes,—how existing pigeons spread into varieties, by some being more lucky in their selections than others—all this it assumes to tell us. But in the presence of the great every day mystery, the wonderful process that is going on in the individual pigeon’s egg, invisibly, yet most exactly, typing the pigeon life that now is, it stands utterly speechless. One of its advocates seems to regard this as a very small matter, at present, indeed, not fully understood as it will be, but of little consequence in its bearing on the great scheme. It has its laws undoubtedly, but the principle of life, he maintains, is chemical,—that is, it is a certain arrangement of matter. Now this we cannot conceive, much less know. We are equally baffled whether we take into view the grosser (as they appear to the sense) or the more ethereal kinds of matter, whether as arranged in greater magnitudes, or in the most microscopic disposition of atoms, molecules, or elementary gases constituted by them. We may attempt still farther to etherealize by talking of forces, motions [motions of what ?] heat, magnetism, electricity, etc. They are still but quantities, matters of more or less. And so the modern chief of the positive school has boldly said: all is quantity, all is number; life is quantity, thought is quantity (so much motion); what we call virtue is quantity; it can be measured. And so all knowledge is ultimately mathematics, or the science of quantity. There is nothing that cannot, be reduced, in its last stages, to a numerical estimate. There is, moreover, just so much matter, force, and motion in the universe,—ever has been, ever will be. And there is nothing else. But how life, a thing in itself dimensionless, to say nothing of feeling, thought, and consciousness, can come out of such estimates is no more conceivable of one kind of matter, however moving, than it is of another. Still more do we fail to imagine how it can, in any way, be the result of figure, arrangement, position, quantity, or of ó÷ῆìá , ôÜîéò , èÝóéò as Leucippus and Democritus called their three prime originating causalities [see Aristot., Met. II. 4]. But so it is, they still continue to insist, though chemistry has searched long and could never find it, or even “ the way to its house,” as is said, Job_37:20, of the light. Prof. Haeckel, of Jena, in his Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte maintains “that all organized beings are potentially present in the first matter of the nebular system.” He looks upon “all the phenomena of life as a natural sequence of their chemical combination, as much as if they were conditions of existence, though the ultimate causes are hidden from us.” There may be some truth in what is said about conditions [for conditions are not causes], but it is the other remark that demands attention: “though the ultimate causes may be hidden from us.” Ho seems to regard this as a very slight circumstance, which ought to have little effect on the great argument of what calls itself the exact, and “positive philosophy.” There is yet indeed an unimportant break in the chain; a link or two is to be supplied; that is all, they would say. But what data have we for determining what is lacking before the full circuit of knowledge is completed ? A most important inquiry this: how great is the separation made by the unknown? Is it a few inches, or a space greater than the stellar distances? Is it a thin partition through which the light is already gleaming, or is it a vast chasm, compared with which any difference between the most ancient and the most modern knowledge is as nothing ? Is it something that may be passed over in time, or is it the measureless abyss of infinity which the Eternal and Infinite Mind alone can span? “ They are yet hidden from us,” he says. Is there the least ray of light in the most advanced science that shows us that we are even approaching this mysterious region of causality? Is there any reason to think that we know a particle more about it than Aristotle did, or those ancient positivists who talked of ó÷ῆìá , ôÜîéò , and èÝóéò , or any of those profound thinkers of old whose better reasoned atheism Cudworth has so fully refuted in his great work? And yet this professor of “exact science” talks of his monera, the prototypes of the protista, and how from these came neutral monera, and from these, again, vegetable and animal monera, just as freely as though he knew all about it from his inch of space and moment of time, or had not just admitted an ignorance which puts him at an inconceivable distance from that which he so confidently claims to explain. For it should be borne in mind that science has not merely failed to discover the principle of life, as “positive knowledge;” she cannot, even conceive it; she cannot form a theory of it which does not run immediately into the old mechanical and chemical language of number and quantity, out of which she cannot think, nor talk, without bringing in the supernatural, and that, too, as something above her province. After what is told us about the monera, etc., the writer proceeds to say: “ this once established, from each of the archetypes, we have a genealogy developed which gives us the history of the protozoan and animal kingdoms,” etc., as though any thing had been established, and he had not admitted his ignorance of a prime truth without which he cannot take a step in the direction in which he so blindly hastes. There is nothing new in this, in substance, though there may be much that is novel in form and technology. It is the old philosophy of darkness. It is as true of this modern school as it was of the old cosmologists of whom Aristotle first said it, ἐê íῦêôὸò ðÜíôá ãåííᾴí , “that they generate all things out of Night.” This bringing every thing out of the nebular chaos through mechanical action and chemical affinities, and these grounded on nothing else than ó÷ῆìá , ôÜîéò , and èÝóéò , is nothing more than the Hesiodean generations, or the Love and Discord, the attractions and repulsions, of Empedocles. It is the pantogony of these old world builders, but without their splendid poetry.
“All organized beings in the first nebular matter,” and that from eternity! Then, of course, there has been no addition in time, no plus quantity, or plus power, or any plus idea combined with power; for that would be something which previously was not. Newton was in the toadstool; for what is not in cannot come out, or be developed; and so every toad-stool now contains a Newton; every fungus contains an academy of science, or a school of “positive philosophy.” The carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, or still earlier and more formless matter out of which this thinking arises, is there, only in a different ôÜîéò and èÝóéò , perhaps. There has been no more addition to nature in the physical development of the rationalist commentator than in that of the ëִּðִּéí (Exo_8:17; Psa_105:31) or Egyptian lice, whose immediate production he regards as beneath the dignity of any supposed Divine or supernatural action. And so there can be no real or essential difference in rank. The kinnim were as ‘much in the first matter as the phosphorus that thinks in the brain of the theologian; they had as high and as old a place. The idea, too, of the kinnim was there, and all the machinery of their development; so that there was no saving of means or labor; their immediate genesis would cost no more, or be any more of a belittling work, than their mediate, or developed production. These insignificant creatures were provided for from all eternity. But providing means foreseeing, foreknowing; and language revolts. We cannot consistently talk atheism or materialism in any human dialect; God be thanked for such a provision in the origin and growth of speech. We can, indeed, say in. words, as one of the boldest of this godless school has said, ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke, “ without phosphorus no thought;” but then we must give up the word idea as, in any sense a cause originating; for there could be no idea antecedent to the phosphoric matter, or that order and position of it, out of which idea, or the development of thought, was to arise; that is, any idea of phosphorus before phosphorus. There is, then, nothing eternal, immutable, undeveloped, or having its being in itself, and to which, as an ideal standard, the terms higher and lower can be referred to give them any meaning. For all risings of matter, or form, to higher forms regarded as any thing else than simply unfoldings of previous matter, or previous arrangements of forces, are creations as much as any thing that is supposed first to commence its being as a whole; since more from less involves the maxim de nihilo, as well as something from nothing in its totality. If they were in that previous matter without a new commandment, a new word, and a plus activity accompanying it, then they are not truly a rising. They are no more, in quantity, than what they were; and quantity is all. Quality, according to Comte, is but a seeming; it is not a positive entity, but only ó÷ῆìá , ôÜîéò , and èÝóéò , an arrangement of matter. The potentiality, then, has all that there is, or can be, in any actuality. Even that inconceivable power which causes any potentiality to be thus potential, is, itself, only a potentiality included in the infinite sum of potentiality, which, as a whole, is also, in some way, caused to be what it is, and as it is. We say, in some way; for to say for some reason, would, at once, be bringing in a new word, and a new idea, utterly foreign to this whole inconceivable scheme. According to the other philosophy, Reason is “in the beginning,” ἐí ἀñ÷ç ̇ ἦí ὸ Ëüãïò (John 1.; Pro_8:22). But here reason is junior to matter, something developed, and which could, therefore, neither as intelligens nor as intellectum, be made a ground of that from which itself proceeds. We can never get out of this labyrinth; for the moment we bring in a plus quantity, or a plus activity, or a plus idea, or any thing seeming to be such, we only have a new causative potentiality, and that demanding another, which is potential of it, and so on ad infinitum; the infinity, too, not proceeding from the highest downward, but from the lowest state [or that which is next to nothing], as being the first possible manifestation of being in the universe of conceivable things. Again, it may be asked, why has not this infinite potentiality, in this infinite time, developed all things potential, so that pigeons should long since have become arch-angels, and our poor, earthly, dying race long since risen “to be as gods.” Or how, if we shrink from that, are we to avoid the converse conclusion, that the whole state of things now actual, now developed, is still infinitely low, and that the highest and best in the sphere of soul, and thought, and’ reason, is not only as yet undeveloped, but infinitely far in condition, and eternally far in time, from its true actuality,—if, in such a scheme, highest and best have any real meaning. It makes the lowest and most imperfect first, the best and perfect last, or at such an infinite distance that it may be said they never come. Religion and the Scriptures just reverse this. They put soul first, mind first, the Personal first, the all Holy, the all Wise, the all Righteous, the all Perfect, first, whilst every seeming imperfection contributes to the manifestation of the infinite excellency and infinite glory of the one separate personal God who is first of all and over all.
How poor the science of Koheleth, it may be said, and yet he has propounded here a problem having regard to one of the most common events of life, but which the ages are challenged to solve: “As thou knowest not the way of the spirit, or even how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the work of God who worketh all,”— àֶúÎäַëֹּì the all, the great paradigm which He is bringing out in space and time [ch. Ecc_3:14], and for those moral and spiritual ends to which the natural, with all its changes, and all its developments, is’ at every moment subservient In one sense, indeed, it has no plus quantities. All is provided for in Him “ who is the A and the Ù , the First and the Last, the ἀñ÷ὴ êáὶ ôÝëïò , the Beginning and the End.” “All that God doeth is for the olam, the Great Eternity” [Ecc_3:14]. “Nothing can be added to it or taken from it;” but this, instead of excluding the supernatural, or shutting all things up in nature, necessitates the idea that there is a world above nature, a power, or rather an Eternal “Word [ ἐí ᾦ ôὰ ðÜíôá óõíÝóôçêå (Col_1:17)] in whom all things consist,” or stand together. This Word still speaks in nature. There, still abides its constant voice, ÷åֹì ãְּîָîָä ãַ÷ָּä [1Ki_19:12], susurrus auræ tenuis, its “thin still voice,” that is heard “after the fire and the wind,” its ùֶׁîֶõ ãָּáָø “whisper word,” as Job calls it, Job_26:14; and then again there is the “going forth” of its “mighty thunder voice,” øַòַí âְּáåּøֹúָéå which “none but God can understand,” speaking in its great periodic or creative utterances, as it did of old, and as it shall speak again, when it calls for the “new heavens and the new earth,” giving to nature its new movement and its still holier Sabbath. It is this greater utterance that brings into the natural development its plus powers and plus ideas, not from any undeveloped physical necessity, but from a Divine fullness, not arbitrarily, but from its own everlasting higher law.
Throughout all the seeming nature there remains this mysterious, generative, life-giving process in the vegetable, the animal, and especially in the human birth, as a constant symbol of the supernatural presence, or of the old unspent creative force, still having its witness in continually recurring acts, ever testifying to the great Divine secret that baffles science, and to the explanation of which she cannot even make an approach.
There is an allusion to this mystery of generation, Psa_139:13 : “Thou didst possess my reins [claim them as thine own curious work], thou didst overshadow me in my mother’s womb.” So also in Psa_139:15 : “My substance was not hid from thee,”— òַöְîִé my bone, the same symbolic word that is here employed by Koheleth. In fact, it was ever so regarded by the earliest mind, as it must be by the latest and most scientific. Koheleth simply expressed the proverbial mystery of his day. It existed in the thinking and language of the most ancient Arabians; as is evident from the use Mohammed makes of it in the Koran. His mode of speaking of it shows that it was a very old query that had long occupied the thoughts of men. Hence his adversaries are represented as proposing it to him as a test of his being a true prophet (see Koran Sur. 17. 78): “They will ask thee about the spirit (Úä ÇáÑæÍ) ; say: the spirit is according to the command of my Lord, and ye have been gifted with knowledge but a very little way.” When he says “the spirit is by the command of my Lord,” he has reference to a distinction that was made (and very anciently it would seem) between the creation of spirit, and that of matter, or nature strictly. The latter was through media, steps, or growth, whilst spirit was immediate, by the command of God, according to the language of Psa_33:9, or the frequent expression in the Koran which so closely resembles it, ßُäْ ÝßÇä , “be, and it was.” Al. Zamakhshari, in his Commentary, p. 783, 2, tells us that the Jews bid the Koreish ask Mohammed three questions—one about the mystery of “the cave and the sleepers,” one about Dhu l’ Karnein, and the third, this question about the spirit. If he pretended to answer them all, or if he answered neither of them, then he was no true prophet. He answered the first two, but confessed his ignorance of the human soul, as being something “the knowledge of which God had reserved to Himself.” Then he told them that there was the same reserve in their law (the Old Testament) which revealed to them nothing about the way of the spirit, ãøê äøåç . If Mohammed knew any thing about the Bible (and there is but little reason in the contrary supposition), then it may bereasonably thought that in what is thus said of him by the Koranic commentator, he had reference to such passages as this of Ecclesiastes (compare also Ecc_3:21, îé éãò øåç , “ who knoweth the spirit,” etc.), or to the general reserve of the Old Testament respecting the soul, or in a more special manner to Gen_2:7; Gen_6:3, where there are ascribed to God the more direct creation of, and a continued property in, the human spirit. This would seem, too, from Psa_104:29, to be asserted, in some sense, even of the animal creation.—T. L.]
Ecc_11:6. In the morning sow thy seed.—The sowing of seed is here a figurative designation of every regular vocation or occupation, not specially of benevolence; comp. Job_4:8; Psa_126:5; 1Co_9:10-11.—And in the evening withhold not thine hand.—Literal, “towards evening” ( ìָòֶøֶá ), i.e., be diligent in thy business from the early morning till the late evening, be incessantly active.—For thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that.— àֵé æֶä , not “what,” but “whether;” the expression refers, as it seems, to the double labor, that of the morning and that of the evening. “We are to arrange labor with labor, because the chances are equal, and we may therefore hope that if one fails, the other may succeed. God may possibly destroy one work—and who knows which ? (comp. Ecc_5:6); it is well if thou then hast a support, a second arrow to send” (Hitzig).—Or whether they shall both be alike good—i.e., whether both kinds of labor produce what is really good, substantial and enduring, or whether the fruit of the one does not soon decay, so that only the result of the other remains. ëְּàֶçָã “together,” as in Ezr_6:20; 2Ch_5:13; Isa_65:25.
4. Second strophe. Ecc_11:7-10. Admonition to calmness and content, ever mindful of divine judgment, and consequently to the cheerful enjoyment of the blessings of this life.—Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. Hitzig correctly gives the connection with the preceding: The tendency of the advice in Ecc_11:1-6 (mainly in Ecc_11:6) to secure guaranties in life, is justified in Ecc_11:7. “Life is beautiful and worthy of receiving care.” Elster is less clear and concise: “Such an energy of mental activity (as that demanded in Ecc_11:1-6) will only be found where there is no anxious calculation about the result; but where man finds alone in the increased activity of his mental powers, (?) and in the intense striving after an eternal goal, his satisfaction and reward,” etc. The “light” here stands for life, of which it is the symbol. (Comp. Psa_36:9; Psa_49:19; Psa_56:13; Job_3:20). And so the expression: “ to behold the sun,” for which see not only Psa_36:9; Joh_11:9, but also passages in classic authors, e. g., Euripides, Iphig. in Aul. Ecc 1218: ἡäõ ãὰñ ôὸ öῶò âëÝðåéí ; also Hippol. Ecclesiastes 4 : öῶò ὁñῶíôåò ὴëßïõ ; Phoeniss: åἰ ëåýóóåé öÜïò .
Ecc_11:8. But if a man live many years. ëִּé here greatly increases the intensity of thought (comp. Job_6:21; Hos_10:5); it is consequently to have no closer connection with the following àִí ; comp. Pro_2:3; Isa_10:22, etc.—And rejoice in them all; [Zöckler renders: Let him rejoice in them all]; therefore daily and constantly rejoice, in harmony with the apostolic injunction, ÷áßñåôå ðÜíôïôå . See the “ Doctrinal and Ethical” to know how this sentence is to be reconciled, in Koheleth’s sense, with the truth that all is vanity, and at the same time to be defended against the charge of Epicurean levity.—Yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. ëִּé is here the relative, not the causal ὅôé ; comp. the Septuagint: êáὶ ìíçóèÞóåôáé ôὰò ἡìÝñáò ôï ͂ õ óêüôïõò , ï ͂ ôé ðïëëáὶ ἔóïíôáé . “ The days of darkness are those to be passed after this life in Scheol, the dark prison beneath the earth (Ecc_9:10), the days when we shall no longer see the pleasant light of the sun, or the period of death;” comp. Job_10:21, f.; Job_14:22; Psa_88:12, etc.—All that Cometh is vanity; that is, that cometh in this world; everything that exists in this life, consequently all men especially; comp. Ecc_6:4; Joh_1:9. Nevertheless the translation should not be in the masculine; the Septuagint is correct: ðᾶí ôὸ ἐñ÷üìåíïí , ìáôáéüôçò . The sense given by Vaihinger and Elster is too broad : “ All future things are vanity.” But even this is more correct than the Vulgate and Luther, who refer ùֶׁáָּà to the past.
Moreover the clause is a confirmation of what precedes, though used without a connective, and therefore making a still greater impression.
Ecc_11:9. Rejoice, O young man in thy youth.—Here we again have a vividly emphatic omission of the connective. That which the previous verse recommended in general, is now specially addressed to youth as that period of life especially favorable to cheerful enjoyment, and therefore, in accordance with God’s will, especially appointed thereto. But the necessary check is indeed immediately placed upon this rejoicing, by the reminder of the duty to forget not that God will bring to judgment. áְּ in áְּéַìְãåּúֶêָ does not give the cause or object of rejoicing, but, as also in áִּéîֵé in the following clause (comp. Isa_9:2), the period and circumstances in which it is to occur.—And let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, For this expression comp. Ecc_1:17; Ecc_3:18; Ecc_7:25, etc. The heart delights the whole man in proportion as it itself is èåֹá , that is, of good cheer.—And walk in the ways of thine heart, i.e., in the ways in which it will go; follow it. Comp. Isa_57:17 and for the thought above Ecc_2:10.—And in the sight of thine eyes, i. e., so that thy observation of things shall form the rule for thy conduct, (comp. Ecc_3:2-8). This is in accordance with the K’ri áְּîַøְàֶä , which is attested by all versions and manuscripts; the ketib áְּîַøְàֵé which is preferred by Hengstenberg and others, would designate the multitude of the objects of sight as the rule for walking, which, as Hitzig correctly observes, would be an intolerable zeugma. We moreover decidedly condemn the addition of ìֹà before áְּîַøְàֵä : “and not according to the sight of thine eyes,” as is found in the Codex Vaticanus of the Septuagint, and in the Jewish Haggada; for the passage in Num_15:39, that probably furnished the inducement to this interpolation, is not, when rightly comprehended, in antagonism with the present admonition; for quite as certain as the allusion is there to amorous looks of lust, is it here, on the contrary, to an entirely innocent use of sight, and one well-pleasing to God.—But know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee to judgment. Comp. Job_11:6. The judgment ( îִùְׁôָּè ) is very certainly not merely to be considered as one of this world, consisting of the pains of advanced age (Hitzig), described in Ecc_12:1, ff., or of human destinies as periods of the revelation of divine retributive justice in general (Clericus, Winzer, Knobel, Elster, etc.). The author rather has in view the “judgment” in the absolute sense, the great reckoning after death, the last judgment, as the parallels Psa_143:2; Job_14:3; Job_19:29, etc., incontestably show (comp. also Heb_9:27; Heb_10:27); the preludes of the final judgment belonging to this life come into view only as subordinate. Neither Ecc_11:8 of this chapter, nor Ecc_9:10 are opposed to this; for Koheleth in these teaches not an eternal, but only a long sojourn in Scheol. Our interpretation receives also the fullest confirmation in Ecc_3:17 as in Ecc_12:7; Ecc_12:14.
Ecc_11:10. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart. The positive command to rejoice, is here followed by the warning against the opposite of rejoicing ëַּòַí “sorrow, dissatisfaction;” the Septuagint, Vulgate, Geier, etc., most unfittingly render it “anger,” just as the following, øָòָä which means “ evil, misfortune,” they render, “ wickedness,” ( ðïíçñßá , malitia). The recommendation to cheerfulness instead of sadness and melancholy (comp. Mal_3:14; Isa_58:3) is here clearly continued; comp. Ecc_9:7, ff. For áָּùָø in the second clause, comp. Ecc_5:6.—For childhood and youth are vanity. The figure ( äַùַּׁçֲøåּú a later expression for ùׁçø ; comp. the Talmudic ùַׁçֵøִéú , and the thing compared( äַéַּìְãåּú also a later word) are here, as in Ecc_5:2; Ecc_7:1, connected by a simple copula. Koheleth would have written more clearly, but less poetically and effectively if he had said “for as the dawn of the morning so is the period of youth all vanity” (i.e., transitory, fleeting, comp. Ecc_7:6; Ecc_9:9).
[Koheleth’s Description of Old Age, chap. 12.—The imagery and diction of this remarkable passage show it to be poetry of the highest order; but it presents a very gloomy picture. Even as a description of the ordinary state of advanced life, it is too dark. It has no relief, none of those cheering features, few though they may be, which Cicero presents in his charming treatise De Seneclute. As a representation of the old age of the godly man, it is altogether unfitting. Compare it with the ùֵׂéáָä èåֹáָä , the “good old age” of Abraham and David, Gen_15:15,1Ch_29:28, the serene old age of Isaac, the honored old age of Jacob, the hale old age of Moses and Joshua. See how Isaiah (Isa_40:30-31) describes the aged who wait upon the Lord: “The youths may faint and be weary, even the young men may utterly fail, but they who wait on Jehovah shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. A more direct contrast is furnished by the striking picture of aged saints, Psa_92:15 : They are like the grandæval cedars of Lebanon; “ planted in the house of the Lord, they shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing” (more correctly, “still resinous and green”) evergreens; or, as Watts has most beautifully paraphrased it,
The plants of grace shall ever live;
Nature decays, but grace must thrive;
Time that doth all things else impair,
Still makes them flourish, strong and fair.
Laden with fruits of age they show,
The Lord is holy, just and true;
None that attend His gates shall find,
A God unfaithful or unkind.
Another very striking contrast to this is that picture which Solomon twice gives us in the Pro_16:31; Pro_20:29, “the hoary head a crown of glory when found in the way of righteousness.” But one supposition remains; the picture here given is the old age of the sensualist. This appears, too, from the connection. It is the “evil time,” the “day of darkness ” that has come upon the youth who was warned in the language above, made so much more impressive by its tone of forecasting irony. It is the dreary old age of the young man who would “go on in every way of his heart, and after every sight of his eyes,”—who did not “ keep remorse from his soul, nor evils from his flesh ”—and now all these things are come upon him, with no such alleviations al often accompany the decline of life. Such also might be the inference from the words with which the verse begins : “Remember thy Creator while the evil days come not” ( òã àùø ìà ). It expresses this and more. There is a negative prohibitory force in the òã àùø : So remember Him that the evil days come not—“before they come,” implying a warning that such coming will be a consequence of the neglect. Piety in youth will prevent such a realizing of this sad picture; it will not keep off old age, but it will make it cheerful and tolerable, instead of the utter ruin that is here depicted.
Another argument is drawn from the character of the imagery. The general representation is that of the decay of a house, or rather of a household establishment, as a picture of man going to his eternal house, his áéú òåìí , ἀῑ ̔ äßïí ïἴêçóéí . This earthly house ( ἐðßãåéïò ïἰêßá , 2Co_5:1) is going to ruin, but the style of the habitation is so pictured as to give us some idea of the character of the inhabitant. It is not the cottage of the poor, nor the plain mansion of the virtuous contented. It is the house of the rich man (Luk_16:19) who has “ fared sumptuously ( ëáìðñῶò , splendidly) every day.” The outward figure is that of a lordly mansion,—a palace or castle with its “ keepers,” its soldiers, or “ men of might,” its purveyors of meal and provisions, its watchers on the turrets. It is a luxurious mansion with its gates once standing wide open to admit the revellers, now closing to the street. The images that denote these different parts of the body, the different senses or gates of entrance to the soul, are all so chosen as to indicate the kind of man represented. It is the eye that looked out for every form of beauty, the mouth (the teeth) that demanded supplies of the most abundant and delicious food. It is the ear that sought for “singing women,” ëָּì áְּðåֹú äַùִּׁéø , the loudest and most famed of the “daughters of song.” And so, too, the appurtenances at the close of the description, the hanging lamps, the golden bowl, the costly fountain machinery all falling into ruin, present the game indications of character, and of the person represented.
Another very special mark of this may be traced in the expression åְúָôֵø äָàֲáִéּåֹðָä Ecc_11:5, rendered, “desire shall fail,” rather, “ shall be frustrated,” still raging but impotent. How characteristic of the old sensualist, and yet how different from the reality in the virtuous old age that has followed a temperate and virtuous youth! See how Cicero speaks of such failure of desire as a release, a relief, instead of a torment: libenter vero istinc, tanquam a domino fu